Skywalker at Bangkok’s Tropic City

When in Bangkok, a visit to Tropic City is a must. One of the first spots in the Thai city with elevated craft cocktails and bar food, Tropic City – named Bar of the Year in 2018 – is the brainchild of Swedish bartenders Philip Stefanescu and Sebastian De La Cruz. And they have a brand new menu of drinks dubbed Tropic City, with colorful tropic drinks including the Skywalker.

A blend of horse power bark-infused vodka, pimento dram, falernum, honey water, pineapple juice, lime juice and a beetroot air on top, the Skywalker is funky and vibrant – just like Tropic City itself.

“Not only is it one of our more complex cocktails, the Skywalker seamlessly reflects what Tropic City is all about when it comes to cocktails: tropical flavors with a touch of simplicity yet complex and delicious,” explains Stefanescu. “As a tropical cocktail bar with an innate love of rum, with an extensive rum collection, so when discussing the launch of our new cocktail menu and the new cocktails, we always said: no vodka cocktail will be on the menu. But that is exactly what happened.”

And good thing it did.

“Our Skywalker cocktail has a hint of bitterness thanks to the horse power bark commonly used when crafting the Thai moonshine: Yadong, which we then use to infuse with the vodka,” adds De La Cruz. “To balance out the drink, we utilize very classic Tiki ingredients such as Pimento Dram, honey, pineapple, citrus fruits and liqueurs by the likes of falernum. We often work with “tiki-techniques” at Tropic City and the Skywalker is no different.”

As a nod to their Scandinavian roots, the Skywalker is topped with beetroot air, “created using a fish pump inserted into freshly slow-juiced beetroot juice with half a bar spoon of sucro added,” explains Stefanescu and De La Cruz “The earthy notes of the beetroot help to counteract the tropical flavors all while adding another layer and complexity to the cocktail.”